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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011344">the jet-set life will kill you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ'>KilltheDJ</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bombing, Canon-Typical Violence, Nonbinary Jet Star (Danger Days), Origin Story</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:20:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jet Star realizes three things, so far, in their lifetime - pain, loneliness, and how to act.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the jet-set life will kill you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For @killjoynest's Zone Five Quarantine Fair! Using the prompt beginning rather than escape.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>I.</strong>
</p>
<p>The first time Jet Star knows what pain feels like, they’re six-years-old and climbing up to the roof of one of the few permanent buildings in their town.</p>
<p>They don’t know they’re nonbinary yet, don’t know what the future holds at all, but they know that they want to look at the stars and their father wouldn’t let them this late at night  - so they took it upon themself to find the best view. </p>
<p>In the process they’re grinning and laughing to themselves, but not when their foot gets caught into a gap between a wooden post and the concrete, a health code violation to rival all health code violations, but they don’t know that yet.</p>
<p>All they know is their foot is caught, but it’s not painful. The chill of the night wind starts to cut into their undoubtedly red face, but that’s not painful if they don’t think about it.</p>
<p>They want to see the <em>stars, </em> not get caught, in the gap, or by their dad! It’s not <em>fair! </em></p>
<p>And it wasn’t fair when they tried to twist their foot free, the <em>crack </em>that echoes off whatever in the mostly-empty town, not the crack that sounded when they popped their ankles. </p>
<p>It wasn’t <em>right.  </em></p>
<p>They hiss, but the pain isn’t the top of their priorities. They want to see the <em>stars, </em>and they’re not going to be stopped by whatever happened to their ankle!</p>
<p>[ And yet, six hours later, the sun begins to rise, they’re sitting there in an awkward position crying because their ankle has swollen and they never got to stargaze like they wanted to. That’s how their father finds them, rushing over to help and muttering about <em>you need to be careful </em>and <em>you could’ve died! </em>]</p>
<p>They think that was the first time they considered themself a <em> star. </em>Just as stuck as the ones in the sky, but they weren’t something to stare at like the galaxy clusters.</p>
<p>_</p>
<p>
  <strong>II. </strong>
</p>
<p>The first time Jet Star realizes they’re on their own, they’re rising from the rubble of their home, ten-years-old and sobbing.</p>
<p>The home they’d grown up in, the place where every single memory they had, was destroyed. It was as single as that.</p>
<p>The tears streaking through the ash on their face were silent, wide-eyes trying to take in the desolation around them. They don’t know that word, not yet, but they weren’t thinking about what it all looked like - they were thinking <em>dad, dad, where’s my dad, dad? </em></p>
<p>That’s why they take off, prying the debris off of their arms and legs, concrete dust and sand creating a grimy mixture in their hair, but they don’t care about the wind swirling it all up, away, washing away every memory they’d ever loved.</p>
<p>
  <em> When they were eight, at the Market. </em>
</p>
<p>The Market in their town’s demolished. The only thing they can think of when they think <em>the market </em>is crushed pineapple underneath a slab of concrete with rebar sticking out.</p>
<p>
  <em> When they were five, moving from tent to tent and selling stickers. </em>
</p>
<p>All of the tents are barely more than blood-stained sections of cloth, lumps underneath them concealing either bodies or belongings.</p>
<p>Jet doesn’t care, they’re looking for their dad, where’s their dad, they <em>know </em>they shouldn’t have gone out to buy CDs! They know they shouldn’t have left!</p>
<p>The sun’s shining far too brightly, the heat rising as Jet’s panic does, trying to scramble around the random objects in their way.</p>
<p>They’re starting to see that their house - former house? - was <em>supposed </em>to be in the center of a large crater.</p>
<p>A crater that, in fact, <em> didn’t have anything but ash in it.  </em></p>
<p>Nothing. Absolutely nothing.</p>
<p>Jet doesn’t what to think. They’re not thinking. </p>
<p>They’re running, running, <em> running </em>through everything in their way, to the crater, to the center of the crater, the center of town, <em> where their house was supposed to be. </em> Where their <em>father </em>was supposed to be! </p>
<p>Hell if Jet knows if they’re crying or not, they probably are, but there’s nothing around them and they don’t - they don’t know what to do. </p>
<p>Where’s their father?</p>
<p>They don’t want to think he was in the blast. He couldn’t have been. He <em>wouldn’t </em>have been. Their father was the smartest person they knew, he would know there was a bomb and he would’ve - he would’ve run away from it! </p>
<p>Right? <em> Right? </em></p>
<p>But the more they look around, the more they take in what’s happened, they realize… <em> there’s no way anyone survived this.  </em></p>
<p>They don’t know what tips them off first - the bomb crater that sent dust anywhere, or the gash across their chest, or the burn marks in random areas throughout the settlement, their <em>town, </em> their <em>home - </em>Those aren’t the work of a bomb.</p>
<p>Those are the works of <em>ray guns. </em></p>
<p>Jet doesn’t know too much about ray guns, about Dracs or S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws. They know their mom was one of the people outside in the Desert that fought against them, that didn’t like Better Living Industries, but their father always explained to them that both BLI and Killjoys were extremists.</p>
<p>Are killjoys the extremists?</p>
<p>How can Jet still think that as they sit in the wreckage of the place they’ve always known, pointing out where their friend’s houses used to be?</p>
<p>
  <em> Jack, Stellar, Notch, Suzie.  </em>
</p>
<p>They can count everyone off one-by-one, can see where their houses used to be. </p>
<p>Twisting their ankle doesn’t come <em>close </em>to what’s happening now, the way they don’t know why their chest feels empty but bursting.</p>
<p>Doesn’t know why they don’t know what to do. </p>
<p>[ They’d pick up the flag their town used to fly, one of the only things saved from everything that happened. Then, they’d wrap it around their shoulders and stumble out of the confines of their home, and they’d find the Mailbox.]</p>
<p>Not even the Witch could fix what happened to their family, to their <em>home.  </em></p>
<p>_</p>
<p>
  <strong>III.</strong>
</p>
<p>The first time Jet learns how to stop <em>reacting </em>and start <em>acting, </em>they’re fifteen and in the car with two ‘joys who were nice enough to give them a ride, on the anniversary of their town’s bombing.</p>
<p>“You good, dude?”</p>
<p>Jet doesn’t even know the names of the people who picked them up.</p>
<p>They know that the group they’re traveling with is less of a <em> group </em>and more of a pair of ‘runners with nothing better to do than help out a hitchhiker. They know one of them has bright red hair and an enthusiastic grin, versus the other one, the taller one, who had bleach-blond hair and a blank face. </p>
<p>“Yeah,” Jet smiles, and it’s fake, and no one comments on it. “Yeah, jus’... thinkin’.”</p>
<p>“Take your time, then, but you gotta give us a destination,” the blond one mumbles, staring out the passenger side window and pointedly not looking at either of the two in the car.</p>
<p>The backseat was empty save of them, and that was fine because Jet doesn’t know if they’d be okay with talking at length to anyone. </p>
<p>“Oh!” Yeah, maybe that’d be a good idea. “Anywhere that’s convenient for you guy. I jus’ need to get out of Zone 2.” </p>
<p>“That’s what the Getaway Mile is for!”</p>
<p>The red-head one’s already giving them a headache, but then again, <em> pep </em>wasn’t exactly something Jet’s used to - not after five years of basically running on his own. Speaking of <em>running, </em>he should visit Dr. D sometime.</p>
<p>Dr. D would know what to say to make it feel better, just like he did all those years ago. </p>
<p>If there’s one constant in Jet’s life, they don’t know what it could be other than WKIL Radio,  and the DJ behind it. But constants aren’t important, not in a place like the Zones, and Jet’s doing so much thinking it’s not the red-head giving him a headache - it’s <em>himself.  </em></p>
<p>“Actually, can you just… Take me wherever you’re going?” Why not? If constants don’t matter in a place like the Zones, then why not? </p>
<p>It’s not like Jet’s going anywhere anyways, not this day specifically, and not in their life. Besides, getting murdered at fifteen would be a cool story to tell their dad in the afterlife, even if it would get their ass kicked for dying so young.</p>
<p>The red-head shrugs, but sounds cheery nonetheless. “Sure! That’s what we were doin’ anyway. We’re gettin’ my brother’s bike from the Crash Track!”</p>
<p>Jet wonders if he’s ever going to get used to how <em>happy </em>the red-head sounds. </p>
<p>[ They would, in fact, get used to the ever-fluctuating moods of Party Poison, and the passive anger of the Kobra Kid, and they’d never get to that destination they were supposed to be dropped off at, if only because, just like Party Poison and the Kobra Kid, there was never a destination, just a story waiting to be told. ]</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thx for reading! What do you think?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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